White-winged tern spotted in Manitowoc

A white-winged tern is seen flying over Manitowoc. The shorebird native to Eurasia, last recorded in Wisconsin in 1873, was spotted Saturday afternoon at an impoundment along Lake Michigan.(Photo: Courtesy of Chris West)

A shorebird native to Eurasia that was last recorded in Wisconsin in 1873 has been spotted along the Lake Michigan shoreline in Manitowoc.

A white-winged tern was identified on Saturday afternoon at an impoundment along Lake Michigan — a discovery that has since attracted throngs of birders and passers-by looking for a chance to see the rare bird.

A specimen of a white-winged tern was last recorded in Wisconsin in Jefferson County by A. Ludwig Kumlien, an ornithologist and naturalist, in 1873.

"I think it's safe to say that no one living has seen this bird in Wisconsin," said Carl Schwartz, editor of The Badger Birder, monthly newsletter of the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology.

"It's the rarest bird that's turned up in the state in a very long time."

Schwartz, of Fox Point, identified a solitary white-winged tern flying among 1,000 or so other birds along the shoreline about 3 p.m. Sunday. After hearing about the discovery while birding in the Baraboo Hills, he drove across the state to Manitowoc to see it.

The tern was first observed by Chuck Sontag of Manitowoc, a professor emeritus in biological sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Manitowoc. Sontag lives just block from the impoundment.

According to the Audubon Guide to North American Birds, the white-winged term is about 9 inches. It is similar to black tern and usually associates with it.

It is mostly seen with flocks of migrant black terns on the Atlantic Coast in the late summer, according to Audubon. It is also known to have strayed from Asia to Alaska, and a there are a "couple of instances of adults summering around marshes in the interior" of North America, according to the guide.